Today many organizations implement solutions to manage the process of requesting, planning, and implementing changes to their Information Technology (“IT”) infrastructure. Sometimes, multiple, related changes must be made to software and/or hardware components of the infrastructure. Such changes can also be referred to as “releases.” Traditionally, organizations use multiple tools to implement such changes and/or issue new releases in a piece-wise fashion where each tool is used to implement its part independently. One problem with this piece-wise approach is that often the operations to institute the multiple changes across the existing infrastructure involve dependent and related changes that need to be planned, approved, and implemented in a coordinated way. Complicating the implementation of such changes are the compliance concerns over verification of the changes across multiple toolsets.
In one prior art approach, organizations use a tool to handle the request for a change, plan the change using the tool, and then individually assign the tasks associated with the change/release to a group of individuals that actually perform, or implement, the desired changes. As one example, the tool may be the Remedy Change Management 7.0 by BMC Software, Inc. After performing the change/release, these individuals would manually update the status of the change (e.g., via a configuration management tool) in a piece wise fashion to indicate that the change was implemented. If needed for compliance purposes, one or more individuals could then manually verify the changes. While this approach may provide some control during the planning of a change, it provides no assistance for automating changes or for verifying that approved changes were made.
FIG. 1 shows a tool 100 according to the prior art for implementing changes in an IT infrastructure. The tool 100 is generally manual and operates in a piece-wise fashion as discussed earlier. For example, the tool 100 receives a change request 102 that can involve software distribution, software patch management, hardware parameter adjustments, adding a new user, or other type of change to the hardware and software components of the IT infrastructure. Using the tool 100, administrators can review the change request 102, approve the request, and plan its implementation. Once ready to implement, a number of implementation actions 110/115 are sent to various implementation tools 160/165 in the IT infrastructure. Typically, one change request 102 can generate numerous individual implementation actions 110/115 for numerous implementation tools 160/165. Each implementation tool 160/165 then performs the requested action 162 and registers a response 164 either manually or automatically.
In this prior art approach, each implementation tool 160/165 performs its implementation action 110/115 without any knowledge of why the action is performed. Thus, each implementation tool 160/165 has no knowledge of any other tool being used or what its actual role is in solving the original change request 102. In addition, the implementation tools 160/165 may have their own login or access criteria, thereby hindering any automation of the change process in the infrastructure.
In another prior art approach, overall process management is abandoned in favor of using multiple, distinct tools. One problem with this approach is that one change is often related to, or has dependencies upon, other changes. Managing the change process with a single tool can only take into account those changes under control of that tool. For example, imagine the case where a complex application (e.g., a customer billing system) needs to be updated—a process that will require changes to a number of different application and database components. Even if the application and database updates where closely coordinated and automated, there is no guarantee that they would not conflict with a change being administered elsewhere in the system at the same time (e.g., to a networking device).
The subject matter of the present disclosure is directed to overcoming, or at least reducing the effects of, one or more of the problems set forth above.